Kim Gentes

Back in July, I took a few days and traveled out to CBA convention, which is THE big "show" for anyone involved in Christian retailing. My purpose was find new vendors of worship related products and see what companies had a heart for worship by meeting the people of those companies. On one of the evenings I had the opportunity to meet several people from PDI Music, the worship and praise group from the PDI Ministries and local church movement. Prior to that, I had not much knowledge of them, or their music. That has definitely changed! This month we are very pleased to announce the addition of the entire "Come & Worship" series from PDI. When I got home to Arizona, I grabbed one of the recent PDI song samplers, duplicated it on to my cassette, and began listening to it on the way to and from work each day.

I got hooked! Soon, I was trolling our CD inventory for an indepth look at the PDI albums. My standout favorite? "Lift A Shout", which is a live worship CD with worship leader Bill Patton. I really liked the quality of songs on this CD! It was clear that they weren't just pumping out a CD to meet a deadline- no these were real worship songs, with real annointing! To start with, "Shout" (title cut) really groves! I liked the instrumentation, but you don't get lost with any of the songs on this CD. They are meant for worship, and they work for worship! I found my self muttering "shout, lift a shout" under my breath all day long.

Their are some very nice arrangements on this CD as well, and they do well with execution for those who are looking for good musicality. But what is the one single best thing about this CD? Fast becoming my new favorite song-

After hearing about a dozen songs with nearly the same title (Vineyard/Craig Musseau's "Good To Me"; Vertical Darrel Evan's "So Good To Me"; et al), I figured the topic was pretty much worn out with great songs. WRONG! Steve & Vicki Cooke (songwriters) have given the Body of Christ a wonderful gift in this song. I love a good hook when I hear it, and this song really have a good hook. You won't get this out of your brain, even if you want to (which you won't). The rest of the CD is laced with "Vineyard-esque" style songs, but with a notably more praise oriented slant.

One final note- the first 5 projects in the PDI Come & Worship series contains about 8 songs on each CD, not quite the "standard" number of songs on a typical praise & worship CD. the reason? They kept the good ones! Trust me, I have listened to far too many CDs that should have pared back the filler and been honest with people and present 6-8 excellent worship tunes, rather than milk a CD for extra songs that don't deserve to go "to the nations". I thank PDI for going through the process of giving us 8 excellent songs!

Product Link http://www.sovereigngracemusic.org/albums/category/sovereign_grace_music/lift_a_shout

Review by Kim Gentes